Dog lovers have long known that being able to spend time with their dogs when they are ill makes them feel better, no matter what health issues they are facing. Yet, it’s only been in recent years that pets have been able to visit them officially in hospitals. Many hospitals have rejected such healing opportunities because of concerns related to liability or infection risk, although a few forward thinking facilities have allowed pet visitation for over a decade.

Because many people understood the value of pet visits, there had been many cases of staff feigning ignorance while friends or relatives smuggled pets in at odd hours to see patients. Now there’s a policy in place that allows dogs and cats to visit as long as certain criteria are met. These include approval of the attending physician, proof of rabies vaccination and a bath and brushing for the pet prior to the visit. The pet is not allowed any contact with other patients.

Have you ever been visited by a pet at a hospital or helped facilitate such a visit?

Karen B. London, PhD, is a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist and Certified Professional Dog Trainer whose clinical work over the last 17 years has focused on the evaluation and treatment of serious behavioral problems in dogs, especially aggression. Karen has been writing the behavior column for The Bark since 2012 and wrote The Bark’s training column and various other articles for eight years before that. She is an adjunct professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Northern Arizona University, and teaches a tropical field biology course in Costa Rica. Karen writes an animal column, The London Zoo, which appear in The Arizona Daily Sun and is the author of five books on canine training and behavior. She is working on her next book, which she expects to be published in 2017.